Official Goliath cover. Third installment in the Leviathan trilogy by Scott Westerfeld. Why do the kids look as if they’re in their mid-twenties? I wish they just released a cover with Clanker cogwheels and gears like the first book. Anyway, I bet Thompson’s illustrations are going to be badass! And the story too. Don’t let my Alek-Deryn ship sink, Westy! :p
BOVRIL (OR WAS IT A NEW LORIS?) WITH A MUSTACHE OH GOSH I JUST DIED, SOO CUTE! Totally made my night! Scott Westerfeld gave us this adorable art from Goliath after revealing a false art from the said book last April 1. You read that right, the Goliath art reveal I posted days ago is indeed (like we all suspected) an April Fools’ joke. However, Westerfeld refused to say if it’s a part of a real Goliath art that just underwent photoshop. Need to read the book to find out.
CAN’T WAIT! :))
Crashing a Bash. Scott Westerfeld revealed another art from Goliath, the third installment in the Leviathan series. I’m not really sure if this is an April Fool’s joke, but I just can’t believe what I’m seeing in this scene! Haha. Deryn—obviously Dylan in this art, all dapper in her/his tux and all—is going to marry a girl. And it looks like Lilit, eh? Then there comes our Clanker Prince, looking badass in his uniform in his equally badass mecha, crashing the wedding. IKR, Alek? The one Deryn/Dylan’s going to marry is you, not just any girl…or boy. Just please notice that she isn’t a he. You’re so dense sometimes.
RIGHT guys I ship Deryn-Alek and there’s nothing you can do about it. *fangirl heart flutters in anticipation for the third book* Anyway, this art is created by the amazing Keith Thompson.
A LEGO STORMWALKER! Looky, Scott Westerfeld fans! It’s a stormwalker model from the Leviathan series. Awesome! Westerfeld noted how detailed the backside of the model is—there are tiny steam pressure gauges! :))
is excited for the final installment of the series to come out
SECRETS IN THE ROOKERY. The amazing Keith Thompson collab-ed again with the equally amazing Scott Westerfeld for the third installment of the Leviathan trilogy, Goliath. I’m soo excited! This is the first revealed artwork from the book (chosen through a poll). I wonder what secrets Deryn and Alek are sharing in that illustration? Teehee! Well I guess I have to wait until September. :))
An Imperial Propaganda mentioned in Behemoth by Scott Westerfeld. This, in my opinion, is one of the best illustrations that describe how effective Westerfeld and Keith Thompson (the artist) worked as a team. Here is the description of the poster from the book, in the eyes of one of the characters:
At the bottom was a cartoon city labeled Istanbul, festooned with steampipes and train tracks. The city sat astride The Straits, with the Russian bear looming over the Black Sea and the British navy threatening from the Mediterrenean.
Dominating the poster was a giant chimera striding over the horizon, a Darwinist beast fabricated from half a dozen creatures. It wore a misshapen bowler hat, and carried a dreadnought in one clawed hand and a sack of money in the other. A tiny fat man labeled Winston Churchill rode on its shoulder, watching as the obscene beast menaced the tiny spires and domes below.
Who will protect us from these monsters? read the legend across the top.
You be the judge. :)
Deryn and Alek. For a moment there I thought it’s from an animated series based on Scott Westerfeld’s Leviathan.
CHARACTER OF THE DAY: Deryn Sharp from the Leviathan series (by Scott Westerfeld) aka a steampunk Mulan in World War I. She is a fifteen-year-old Scottish girl who dresses up as a boy to join the British Royal Air Force, not because she wants to fight, but simply because she likes to fly. This fondness of flying started back when she was a kid, when her father took her up in hot-air balloons. She renames herself “Dylan” when she passes as a midshipman.
At odd moments she could see tears brightening Alek’s eyes, only a fierce, relentless pride holding them back. And sometimes when they competed over stupid things, like who could climb the ratlines fastest, Deryn almost wanted to let him win.
But she could never say these things aloud, not as a boy, and Alek would never meet her eyes like this again, if he ever learned she was a girl.
“
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Deryn Sharp (posing as a boy in the army, Dylan Sharp) Scott Westerfeld, Behemoth |
CHARACTER OF THE DAY. Aleksandar Ferdinand from the Leviathan series by Scott Westerfeld. He is the son of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and Princess Sophie Chotek of Hohenburg. Because his mother is a commoner, he is not entitled to the throne of Austria-Hungary, leaving him only as a Prince. He runs away with a few loyal men in his Cyklops Stormwalker after his parents are assassinated.
I’m in love with…
“Of course you’d want to be in this ship. If I weren’t…” He paused. “I mean, if things were different, I’d want to stay here too.”
“You would?”
“Well, maybe it’s silly. But the last few days, it’s like something’s changing inside me. Everything I ever knew is upside down. Sometimes it’s almost as if I’m…in love…”
Dylan’s body tightened beside Alek.
“I know it sounds silly,” Alek said quickly. “It’s quite obviously ridiculous.”
“But are you saying that…? I mean, what if things were different than you thought? If I were…or have you guessed already?” Dylan let out a groan. “Just what are you saying?”
Alek shook his head. “Perhaps I’m putting this stupidly. But it’s almost as though…I’m in love with your ship.”
“You’re in love,” Dylan said slowly, “with the Leviathan?”
“It feels right here.” Alek shrugged. “As if this is where I’m meant to be.”
Dylan let out a strange, choked laugh as he put the medal back into his pocket. ”You Clankers,” he muttered. “You’re all cracked in the head.”
Review: Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
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The Great War of 1914: Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Princess Sophie Chotek were assassinated in Sarajevo, throwing the world in chaos—Austria-Hungary declared war against Serbia. But don’t yawn yet—this isn’t the same ho-hum story we students are required to read in our history books. Science fiction author Scott Westerfeld took this little chunk of World War I, threw it in a cauldron with juicy tidbits of steampunk, fantasy, and young adult literature, and let it bubble until the magic that was the Leviathan was born.
Leviathan kicks off at the cusp of the war between the Clankers (Central Powers), countries that use monstrous steam-powered machineries in battle; and the Darwinists (Entente Powers), countries that use creatures genetically engineered for combat. The main story revolves around two teenagers—Aleksandar Ferdinand runs away from the Germans who killed his parents, leaving Hapsburg with nothing but a battered Stormwalker and a crew of loyal men. Deryn Sharp, a Scottish girl, disguises as a boy to be accepted in the British Air Force. After a series of mishaps and misadventures, they cross paths and set off in a bigger voyage aboard the airship Leviathan, changing both their lives forever.
One thing that’s hard not to notice about Westerfeld is that he’s an amazing world-builder. In his Uglies series, the readers are taken into a post-scarcity dystopian realm and are introduced to wondrous technologies, i.e. the techno-version of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak (the sneak suits) or the floating skateboards we’ve loved from the Back to Future flicks (the hoverboards). Now, in Leviathan, he takes the readers to a breathtaking ride to a believable setting in the past, where eight-legged frigates and traveling ecosystems are part of the norm. The world just unfolds magically under his pen—everything is alive! That’s plus points in my book.
Leviathan is more plot-driven than character-driven, what with the historical bits that served as its main backbone. Its fast pace will keep you turning pages, and you’ll hunger for more development about the characters and their relationships. The characters need more fleshing out, but I think that’ll be left to the sequels; this is, after all, the “launching” point of the whole trilogy so the stage must be set properly before the actors can get in fully. Anyway, Deryn/Dylan is a rather likable heroine—she’s Mulan-ish, considering her daddy issues and her boy-disguise story—and she’s so far my favorite. About Prince Aleksandar, let’s see what he’ll be in the sequels. I can’t feel him that much, and that’s saying something because I’m supposed to at least sympathize with him, being orphaned and all.
This is an astonishingly cool read. I half-expected it to be boring, since Uglies has its own dry moments and this book has historical basis. Westerfeld proved me wrong. XD I’m engrossed from the very first page. As I’ve said in my previous posts, I recommend this to people who don’t mind reading YA novels with small romance—anyone out there whose cup of tea is historical fiction will enjoy this. Anyway, for consolation, I’m seeing lots of puppy love hints in the sequel Behemoth, which I’ve started a couple of days ago. You romantic bookworms might enjoy this after all, but don’t expect too much.
PS: The story is enhanced by the Victorian manga-style illustrations of Keith Thompson. You wouldn’t regret buying this book for those precious pages—they make the reading experience more enjoyable!
